Wisdom with the margins: Picking up a new set of [contextual] glasses for Lent this year.

That the saints of history said “Yes” to God is not a story. Esther, Mary, Jesus, Michael Sattler, Dorothy Day, Dietrich Bonhoeffer are not unique because they answered the call. They are household names because of the context within which they said “Where do I sign?” Their yes was spoken into the darkness of opposition, oppression and hatred. They are a voice crying out from the wilderness, the margins, outside dominant culture and accepted norms. This is no easily whispered “yes.” For saying yes from the minority fringe is very different than saying yes from the safe confines of dominant culture.

But our story begins on the margins, with Jesus, who himself was “an outsider” who “sympathized with the disadvantaged and estranged (John Driver, Radical Faith, pg 24).” Howard Thurman, speaking within the black church context, says in Jesus and the Disinherited, “The basic fact is that Christianity as it was born in the mind of this Jewish teacher and thinker appears as a technique of survival for the oppressed.” This view is echoed everywhere Christians find themselves oppressed, impoverished, or on the margins. And it was equally true of the Anabaptists, forced to the margins by the violence of the state churches.

Our Lenten lectionary texts were clearly not written to, by, or within dominant culture. They reveal a marginalized community of origin set apart by persecution. And yet over and again they shouted, Where do I sign? What was it about their faith that empowered them to say “yes” to God in a world that could not? What is it today about the faith in marginalized communities that consistently calls them to lives of passion and faith? And what can we learn from the margins that will deepen our own faith? But also, what are the dangers of reading from only one perspective?

Context matters! Social location changes how we interpret God, self and our world. Religion for a wealthy white western male will be different than it is for a poor Jewish peasant from Galilee under Roman rule. Putting ourselves in another’s shoes creates empathy and increases our capacity to love all people. But more importantly it reveals the depth of faith which sustains and inspires radical devotion to Christ in a resistant world. In other words, a new set of glasses won’t primarily help you to love someone else, it will help you see how much they can teach you.

For instance, who in Houston could better understand the power of Jesus nonviolent teaching on retaliation, ” turn the other cheek… do not retaliate revengefully by evil means… love your enemies” than the African Amercian churches who lived under oppressive racism in Houston and fought for justice through nonviolent direct action? Or who can rightly teach us to follow Jesus’ teachings “blessed are the poor… Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you” except the poor themselves; who live this ethic as a matter of survival and community rather than charity? Likewise, I’m learning from Houston’s immigrant community who have had their wages stolen the necessity and spirituality to “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” These are all passages from Matthew 5:38-44 that have been and are interpreted (and practiced!) radically different among those of us in Dominant majority culture (differently enough to make y ou ask, Is Jesus an idiot?).

At least one church in Houston will be intentionally learning about Jesus through perspectives other than it’s own. Houston Mennonite Church will be asking, What would faith have meant to you as an Anabaptist worshipping in a secret cave? How is Christianity experienced among the extremely poor? What does “salvation” mean if you are politically oppressed? If the world hates and despises you because of your race, religion, sexual orientation or legal status, how does faith sustain you? What makes marginal communities identify with Jesus so closely in his life, teachings and resurrection presence?

Many of us are familiar with celebrating Lent by dropping something (fasting, which most of us experience as defeat) or picking something up. But this Lent, rather than giving something up, why not pick something up instead. Like a new set of contextual glasses. Consider doing what you usually do (read books and blogs, study the Bible, watch movies, listen to music, eat, pray) but to step outside familiar culture and take the opportunity to learn from communities on the margins of society. Here’s a resource list of books, blogs, films and commentaries, and I invite you to pick one or more of them up this Lent and see the world from a different perspective.

What has helped you see Jesus more clearly? What multi-cultural trips, relationships, or resources have helped you to understand how limited your own perspective is; and the validity of another? What blogs, movies, commentaries, and books would you add to this list?

What are you doing this Lent to better understand the life, teachings and story of Jesus?

What attracts individuals to Jesus is first and foremost salvation without conditions, secondly the power to grow in faith and the greatness of being in the presence of God without having to go through a priest or pastor.

I think the failing of the Christian world is laid at the feet of organized religion which have taken advantage of the Word to ‘grow’ building which we now wrongly call churches.

To Rev. T., re: “the dangers of reading from only one perspective.” Firstly, thank you for your comments. By way of feedback, I’d submit that your admonition presents its own unrecognized dangers. Viewing Jesus’ ministry as “a technique of survival for the oppressed,” asserting that “social location changes how we interpret God, self, and our world,” and identifying marginal communities so strongly with the hope of Christ are all powerful, evocative ideas, grounded in Biblical truth! However, if in your way of thinking you begin to see *all* of salvation history through this lens, if you assign value *only* to the perspectives of those on the margins, and if to you the views of “wealthy White western males” – whatever that elusive species is – are to be abjured, then I submit that you are “reading from only one perspective.” The dangers? Are you making Jesus’ life and ministry simply instrumental to deliverance from social oppression? What perspectives from the margins (e.g., resentment, viewing wealth itself as sinful, victimhood, blame) *should* be confronted? How do you come to presume that your readers are not themselves marginalized in one way or another, or does that apply only to members of selected groups? Marty, the reason I am asking you these questions at all has rather little to do with the content of the examples you gave in this piece, and much to do with an increasing concern that your exhortations represent a narrowing perspective, mostly borrowed uncritically, and as blind to its dangers as the world views you critique? I don’t ask rhetorically, Marty; I’m genuinely interested in your answer.